


Flames

by Rosehip



Series: Ceilidh Tabris saves the Damn World [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Massage, New Relationship, Past Child Abuse, zevwardenweek 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 08:44:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11665629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosehip/pseuds/Rosehip
Summary: Overworked insomniac Ceilidh Tabris appreciates a massage... and then some... from Zevran. Hey, a Warden needs to relax, and it's hard to do that during a blight. But something is eating at the back of her mind... was it something he said?





	Flames

**Author's Note:**

> Origins drops a lot of information on you in tiny slivers, then leaves you to add them up. Here is a Warden, doing that math.

Zevran's warm, smooth palms settled onto Ceilidh's back. They began slowly, resting comfortably as though they meant to sleep there. They moved, one at a time, finding new places to sink into her. The action reminded Ceilidh of kneading paws.

 

She giggled, sleepily.

 

“Tch. Do not tell me I have discovered another place you are ticklish. How can you exist in a body so susceptible?” Zevran shifted above her to dance his hands up her neck to finger little circles on her scalp.

 

“By beating up all my cousins when they tried to pull anything. But no, you just reminded me of a kitten.”

 

His laugh rang out, as warm as his hands that soothed out all of her anxiety and aches. “That move is indeed called cat paws, though I do not believe I have ever been called a kitten before. I will show _you_ a kitten.” He stroked her dark braids to the side and rubbed gently behind her ears.

 

“Ooooh, you gonna make me purr, then?” 'Ticklish' did not describe the susceptibility of her ears.

 

“In due time.” He swept his hands over her shoulders. “You have overtaxed your muscles. It would be remiss of me to hasten through this part, no?”

 

Ceilidh closed her green eyes and settled back down in silent agreement. Zev drew back, the only contact came from his legs along the outsides of hers as he knelt above her. She heard a bottle open, and when his hands returned, they were slick with oil. He swept them lightly from buttocks to shoulders, quickly at first, then slower and deeper.

 

The same motions eventually repeated on her legs, and then changed into a lifting and squeezing all along Ceilidh's body, beginning at her ankles and ending with a delicious press into the tops of her shoulders. She let out a contented “hrrrrm”.

 

It felt painful in parts, but not in a bad way, Ceilidh mused as she sank deeper into herself. She always knew where his hands would fall next, somehow. Nothing surprised her. Eventually, what must be his entire arm slid across each side of her body, easing out whatever stress remained from the day.

 

A kiss fell upon her neck. Zev returned to using his hands, but he stroked more lightly, running soft fingers along the edges of Ceilidh's ears, then the side of her cheek. He lowered himself to cover her body with his, allowing his cock to brush against her, teasing. Tongue joined hands, tasting ears, neck, shoulder, spine.

 

After the smooth, comforting presses, the lighter touches awoke her nerves. Every tickle, every soft brush, alerted her, stimulated her. Ceilidh's breathing sped. Need replaced comfort and trust, little bit by little bit.

 

He slid his arms beneath her, lifting Ceilidh and pressing her against his chest. She shifted to settle into his lap, chest to chest, wriggling invitingly. She nipped at his neck, before leaning in for a leisurely kiss, tasting the cloves he must have an endless supply of, and below that, Zevran's own flavor. How she had come to love that! They crushed against eachother. Ceilidh's nails bit the flesh of his back.

 

He breathed her name against her kiss. Ceilidh felt the sound travel down her whole spine.

 

One of Zevran's hands slid underneath her, caressing gently. A finger circled with deceptive subtlety. All the tension released from Ceilidh's muscles re-emerged at her center; a pleasurable hum of need. She gasped and bit into his shoulder. She growled, and Zevran chuckled breathlessly. His long fingers cupped under her to lift, sliding her upon himself.

 

Their lovemaking was intense, but not urgent. Not at first. A slow burn built in Ceilidh, less like a lightning-struck field and more like the deceptively safe-looking red of a cookfire. They rocked together. The friction slowly, so slowly, narrowed Ceilidh's world to the feeling in her sex. She gripped Zevran harder, thinking distantly that he might bruise.

 

The taut energy inside herself grew from a warm glow into something tense and insistently uncomfortable. A needy whine escaped her lips, still pressed into the flesh of his shoulder. Zevran slid a thumbnail across her nipple just as he rolled into her with more force. Teeth nipped sharply into her earlobe. Tiny sparks of pain, thrown into the dry field of slow-built pleasure.

 

She ignited. The tension released, snapped by those teeth, or the nail... who knew? Ceilidh moaned wordlessly, muffled by the skin against her mouth.

 

Zevran shuddered and gripped her tight, his own orgasm pulsing right behind hers. A stream of words she did not know whispered into her hair. The desire she heard in them strummed a second response from her. The emergency of the earlier tension having dissipated, Ceilidh could enjoy herself now with more clarity. The pressure inside felt more of a too-hot bath than a fire.

 

Zevran's climax and his now wordless voice both receded. His arms curled around her middle. He lay her back upon her bedroll. Ceilidh's eyes opened (when had she shut them?) to meet Zevran's. An echo of the last few moments sparked between them in that glance. Zevran smiled, and looked away first.

 

Ceilidh tugged her lover down to blanket her body with his. She sought the right words, and failed. She settled for “Zev that was...ooooh, you were just amazing.”

 

He kissed her before replying. “See? Some things are worth the time it takes, no?”

 

“How did you ever learn to do that? You knew exactly what it would feel like for me, didn't you?”

 

One finger danced absently along her side. “Mmm, as much as such a thing is possible. My whorehouse upbringing has its occasional benefits, no?”

 

“Definitely.”

 

*

 

Ceilidh woke alone as she always did. She had noticed, distantly, when Zev slipped away to dress and creep out of her tent before she drifted off. She never fell asleep easily without his assistance, these days.

 

Ceilidh could hear heavy footfalls near the fire, and another log tossed onto it. Ceilidh smiled to herself, remembering the way she'd felt earlier. But something nibbled at the back of her mind as she did so. A thought hid from her. As long as it did, further sleep was useless.

 

The Warden slid into her clothes and out of her tent, finding Sten alert, his back to the fire. The moon told her that third watch would be soon. Alistair's, by earlier agreement, but why wake him?

 

“I'll take over if you like, Sten.”

 

He nodded at her. “Very well.”

 

“You can take my tent, if you like. I think I'm done with sleep.”

 

“My thanks. Good morning to you.” He wandered off, availing himself of her offer.

 

The frogs and crickets began to give way to the first birds. Dane and Zevran both slept near the fire in uncannily similar curled postures. Ceilidh wondered absently which one of them Sten had woken the fire to warm.

 

Ceilidh's mind hopped along from subject to subject, refusing to quiet. The woods around them offered no threat, but something lurked in the back of her brain, even still, uneasy.

 

She busied her body to match her mind. She heated water for the morning's tea and porridge. She repaired a seam that needed attention before it could split. She did anything she could think of that didn't make much noise.

 

Ceilidh's shadow fell across Zev as she tossed the oats into the steaming pot near dawn. His eyes cracked open, and closed again as he saw her. Ceilidh had never noticed what a light sleeper he was, but it made sense for someone who'd been in a house of assassins since he was seven.

 

_Seven._

 

The half-thought in the back of Ceilidh's mind surged to the front. Zevran had left the brothel at that age. This meant he'd learned erotic massage before then. She'd known his time there would have been educational in many ways, but she hadn't realized anyone might have intentionally educated him. Someone had. They wouldn't have done it for nothing.

 

_Fuck._ Just when Ceilidh thought the world had shown her its worst, it always had more to expose. Ceilidh had been... mishandled as a child herself. She suspected that more people had been than could ever be known. The scale of this overshadowed her own experiences, though. He must have made peace with it, but the anger she'd never seen him show welled up in her own chest.

 

“Heavy thoughts this morning?”

 

Ceilidh jumped, and might have squeaked. “Zev! I thought you were asleep, mostly.”

 

“I was. You sighed.”

 

“Damn. You _are_ a light sleeper. No, it's nothing that needs talking about.”

 

He rolled easily into a seated position. “If you are certain.”

 

“Yep. Just thinking about the state of the world and things that can't be changed. You can go back to sleep if you want.”

 

He thought for a moment. “Hmm... no. The sun would shine in my face in less than an hour. It would not be worth it.”

 

They fell into silence as Ceilidh stirred the bubbling oats. She added dried berries. When she looked back over at Zev, he was doing some kind of contortionist stretching exercise. “Zev?” Ceilidh asked. “I have a question. Well, two, now.”

 

He exhaled slowly and relaxed his limbs before shooting her a questioning look.

 

“This has nothing to do with nothing, but what was that? It looked like your arms were on backwards.”

 

“Haha! Not quite. My fighting style, and much else in my life, demands flexibility, no? I am maintaining it. I will show you some of the moves if you like.”

 

“Might be useful. Later, sure. What I really was going to ask, though, is how do you stay so upbeat? You never complain, even though you could. The world is what it is, you see as much of it as I do. How do you do that, and be how you are?”

 

“Ah, you _are_ feeling low today, then. It is not as though what I see does not affect me. It is just- what purpose would complaining serve? You have to make the most of where you are, no? If you focus on the pleasures when they are available, the pain recedes for a time.”

 

“But where I am is the middle of a camp with too few tents in a clearing at the ass-end of the morning because darkspawn and incidentally, I'm wanted dead by what's left of the Crown.”

 

He stifled a laugh that threatened to be loud. “Such turns of phrase you have picked up! All of which is still true. You cannot forget it, exactly, but the contrast allows you to see how beautifully precious any momentary pleasure is, no?”

 

“So the badness in my life should make me appreciate the goodness more?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

“All right. I'll work on it.”

 

Zev smiled. “Or you could ignore my advice, seeing where my brilliance has gotten me.”

 

“The same place as me. Here isn't _so_ bad.” She sat next to him, facing the pinking eastern sky.

 

“It... really is not.” He sounded mildly surprised.

 

They watched together as the breaking day lit the trees golden.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, Ceilidh hasn't known Sten that long, but we have, and can say with certainty that he was tending the fire for the dog's benefit. ;)


End file.
